YouTube

Part 2, of Project: Closed Caption was motivated in part by the first posting/experience. After editing the closed captions (CC) on my last video I made this video in response. Since I had the CC experience I started watching the videos with the CC on and noticed how many of those videos had mistakes.

I don’t think many of the content creators give it much thought because the mistakes are there. From simple grammatical errors to omissions, to adding in text never said. Very eye-opening. It bothered me to see it and I wanted to attempt to get others creators to check their CC.

I made a video challenging others to watch and proofread their most viewed video in 5 minutes of total silence. Not sure if it will work to motivate others to do it but it’s worth a try. If you read this, please share the video with others and challenge them to the Silence Challenge. -13

Words matter, in a world of silence. What an experience. Talk about an eye-opening, paradigm shift. Less that three days ago now I was editing a video posted to YouTube. At some point I somehow turned on the Closed Captions. Not sure how. Doesn’t matter. Here is what does.

I was ignoring them. Then I noticed “…morons…” in one of the captions on screen. I don’t use the word “morons” so that got my curiosity up. I watched more of the captions and was surprised how inaccurate it could be. That led me to discover that the captions had been automatically generated. I also discovered that I could edit them to correct the mistakes.

Once I figured out how to make the edits, I thought I’d pick a short video and give it a try. That is when the paradigm shift happened. It was late at night, no sounds in the house or outside. As I was reading them I was drawn into a world of total silence. Imagining that I could hear nothing and that I depended on the words I’m reading to be accurate. Not leave anything out. It would be the only way I would get anything out of, or make sense of the video.

Thinking about that stuck me. Imagine trying to follow along with the video, and have to watch the video and read along but the words you are reading are wrong or missing. It’s like having subtitles in a language you don’t understand. Useless!

It suddenly became a top priority to go back through all of the videos I’ve posted and edit the closed captions. There were so many mistakes. It’s not surprising with all the slang and my accent. I’ll bet that’s why YouTube doesn’t like some of my videos, the auto generated text.

Still not caught up, the project has taken hours and is committed to editing all of our videos with relevant audio. A number of the mistakes are saved below. Some of the best ones aren’t here because I didn’t think of writing this blog until I was a few hours into the project.

Many of them, funny, simple mistakes. Others, complex misinterpretations. Wait until you read them. Some of them will require reading over a few times to comprehend the misquote like this one. “Honey that stools that seat in there is trying to germinate well, okay” – “Okay, that soil, that seed in there is trying to germinate.” The misquote, then the correction. See what I mean?

Read on for a laugh or two, but remember what its like to have to read through it and try to have the same video experience everyone that has hearing does. That was an eye-opening experience, we’ll never again post a video without checking the closed captions. I might make a video to challenge others who post videos to do the same. We’ll see. -13

Irma passed. The electricity and internet stayed on the entire time. Then as the storm passed, internet gone! For more than a week, I’ll write more on that in another post. Couldn’t work on my other projects so thought I’d clear up some of my video projects and catch up.

Here it is weeks later and just today have I been able to accomplish what I set out to do. What I thought would take a week has turned into three weeks. I discovered I had four months of dash cam videos piled up on my computer. When I checked, the memory on the computer was in the red zone. Whatever that meant.

Parked at the computer desk I began the sorting process. I discovered some things I hadn’t noticed before when I didn’t have so many to sort at the same time. Our dK2 camera usually records 100, three minute videos per day, often more. There are so many drivers not using their turn signal to indicate a lane change I had to eliminate all but the most offensive in my eye. I used close calls, speed, proximity to others, distance etc as a guide. The progression of this can be seen in the videos as I learned more.

It takes me about 30 seconds to scan each 3 minute section. More if I find something. Every 5 hours or so of video seems to produce 1-2 minutes of useable footage. The project getting behind like that was to much. I have to stay on top of it or it will become overwhelming and I’ll run out of storage space.

I finally figured a way to cut a still image from the actual footage to use as a custom thumbnail. That discovery made me want to go back an change all the covers to the begining. I didn’t like the blue screen background much it reminded me of computer blue screen hell. So, now it’s changed.

I also have a lot of after hurricane Irma footage to work on. Hoping I can find some before footage to work in for contrast. That will take a couple weeks again of trying to find, then match footage or stills. I’ve deleted many things that are gone forever so it might be hard to find. Lesson learned with imovie, save a copy away from your project, if you cut something from another project then delete it, it will be gone from your other project.

Glad I’m somewhat caught up. The Irma after footage will be time consuming but worth it because there is serious destruction recorded on them. They look like they will be much longer than most videos. More in the 10 minute ranges or so. I like making these kind of videos for fun hope people enjoy them. -13

I can hardly believe the numbers. I’ve been messing around over at YouTube getting things in order over there, trying to understand things better and clicked on the wrong button. It went to the first page of my videos. When I was checking out the views on the videos listed I couldn’t believe how many views my compost sifter had. It’s really exciting to see that there are many people interested in composting and possibliy organic gardening. Really hope my video inspires and lifts people up. -13

Monetizing My YouTube videos. It didn’t take long soon after I had posted my first video Organic gardening, my homemade compost sifter experience. to make the choice. Over the years I’ve learned that uploads/downloads can get corrupted. That said I checked my newly uploaded at the time non-monetized video on YouTube and the very first thing I watched was an advertisement. I cannot remember what the ad was for but remember it was short maybe 15 seconds, 30 max. Didn’t think anything of it.

Several months went by and it suddenly dawns on me when I was checking out some of my favorite YouTube channels through Apple TV that I could also see what my own creations look like on a larger screen. Hello! I think that is called a, clue! Why didn’t I think of it before? Excited at this “new” discovery I quickly navigated over to my content, pushed play. Commercial advertisement. If I remember correctly it was an AARP ad that lasted a minute but I could be wrong on who but am sure the ad lasted a minute because it had a countdown timer which surprised me.

Forward in time, not sure how long. I’m learning more about YouTube video making and am considering using the YouTube video editor instead of iMovie. I opened the video editor and noticed something printed on the screen. It says “Advertisements may be displayed on videos that use content available through the YouTube Video Editor”.

That made me think about the ads running along with content creators non-monetized videos. If I as a creator, use the YouTube editor, YouTube is at liberty to use my intellectual property to sale advertisements to potential customers and I would not receive any compensation for that use. When I look at like that, I realize, I’ve donated my time, creativity and energy for a for profit corporation to make a little, profit. I have no problems with the profit part, however when looking at my budget though, it doesn’t add up.

I started posting videos to YouTube for several reasons. One of then is to capture certain parts of life on film either still or video and share it with others so they can experience it. I’m not a pro, not into the pro gear it’s too much to deal with, I always use the most low-budget cameras and equipment available to me at any given time. Consider me a professional-amateur. It’s about the story or image not the quality of equipment. My point? No matter how low-budget one does a video-photo project there are expenses involved.

Back to the budget. One never knows in this life how much funding they will need for the present, future or unexpected. Having monetary income from various sources is the only course of action I can see that will ensure an individuals successful future. It’s a case of “never put all of your eggs in one basket”. The Humpty-Dumpty Future Plan? Better off skipping that one I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. Back to the point.

When I had posted my first video I had already set up an Amazon affiliate store. My thinking at the time was that if I could make a little bit from that to help pay for my project expenses then the better. The thing that made me decide for sure to do it was that Amazon stated on their website that it did not raise the price on the consumer. That sounds like a good deal for everyone. The YouTube viewer gets to watch something they have an interest in without a paid membership from thousands of contributors, Amazon makes a sale and I would get a little bit for my projects.

Everyone wins! The way I see it. To the present. AdSense. AdWords. All the other stuff I can’t remember. I’m not going to explain them because I’m not capable. I do know the smart money is; monetizing the videos posted because if you read the fine print in almost any of the social media outlets permission is given to use that material however they want to. They have a big money pie and it would be stupid of me to not have a little slice of prosperity myself when they’re using my intellectual-property-ingredient to make it.

My videos are available in the United States, I’m not sure what other countries they may run in. They are usually available if they do not violate any of the various morality laws or standards. That means just one video has the potential to reach millions of people worldwide, simultaneously. Wrap your mind around that for a moment. Amazing!

For the present and into the future I’ll make videos like I usually do. Whenever something inspires me to make one. Can’t wait to see how the monetization works out. -13